Ipswich MP, Sir Ben Gummer, Mayor of Ipswich, Minister for Ipswich, Patron Saint of Lady Lane, and Secretary – for life – of the General Association of City Workers Against the Homeless, gives the alternative view to Tendance Coatesy.

“I care passionately about Ipswich. I am proud of our town. But we could achieve so much more. Discover my vision for a strong future for Ipswich.”

I say these words, to my good friend Basil Fotherington–Thomas every day.

“Hello clouds, hello sky” he replies.

How right he is.

I do notice some oiks who are still living on the street – next to Sainsbury’s.

The filthy beggars asked for my hard-earned money only yesterday!

I read Chomsky you know! – this is all the crisis of lazybones.

The Ipswich so-called working class must pull their socks up.

Here is what I said,

I asked this employer, which is a respected player in the food industry, if they had taken any recruits from the Work Programme for the long-term unemployed. They said they had but their representative sighed and raised an eyebrow. I asked her to elaborate. Well, she said, take the last group sent by the Job Centre. There were twenty people due to turn up for an induction session on the Monday; only twelve turned up. Of those twelve, only eight came the second day, when work properly began. And of that eight, only four were still working at the end of the week. That’s four people out of twenty – and all twenty could have had a job. The pay was a little Minimum Wage, inside, in a clean environment. So this was a chance of a good job that sixteen people who had been unemployed for a long time chose to pass up.

The result, the employer explained, was that they were forced to turn to migrant labour. Migrant workers from Eastern Europe were, she said, in general punctual, hard-working and reliable. Some English people were also punctual, hard-working and reliable, but many sent by the Job Centre were not.

Long term unemployment is falling too, but is still far too high: 740 people in Ipswich have been out of work for more than twelve months. For those that want to get a job, the amount of support they receive is now greater than ever before – in skills, in training, in interview practice and in work placements. But there is still a small number who are unwilling to make a go of it. Our benefit reforms have made it much harder for such people to choose to live on benefits – and the prime minster has promised that, should he win the next election, we will do more. I support this: when there is the possibility of work, everyone in this town should have the opportunity – and duty – to work. Otherwise, it is the rest of us – the low paid included – who must pay for that lifestyle decision.